Surface maintenance machines that perform a single surface maintenance or surface conditioning task are, of course, well known. Surface maintenance machines are generally directed to maintaining floors, including both hard surfaces and soft surfaces such as carpets. The term floor, as used herein, refers to any support surface, such as, among others, floors, pavements, road surfaces, ship decks, and the like, including those surfaces having fabric, (e.g. carpet), thereon.
Each of the aforesaid surface maintenance machines may have one or more motorized drivers coupled to a floor maintenance tool for, among others, burnishing, polishing, scrubbing, and/or sweeping. The motorized driver may be an electrical motor, pneumatic motor, or the like, for performing the desired operation. For example, the motorized driver may be an electrical motor having a shaft coupled to a burnishing pad driver assembly for causing circular motion of the burnishing pad.
Commonly such floor maintenance machines, particularly walk-behind propelled floor maintenance machines, are battery powered to both propel the machines as well as operate the maintenance tools typically driven by one or more electrical motors. Further, present day floor maintenance machines include a variety of electrically powered pumps, valves, liquid dispensers, electrical system controls, and the like.
Such battery powered floor maintenance machines have a limited self powered operation time dependent upon the electrical storage capacity of the batteries. Once the battery power is below a particular level, the batteries must be recharged. During the recharge time, the machine is then no longer available for service.
For large floor maintenance operations, multiple machines are commonly employed; some being operated, and others having their batteries recharged. Alternatively, separate batteries could be recharged while the machine is in service. In turn, each of the “on-board” batteries may be interchanged with those previously being recharged. This of course is not only quite laborious, but brings up a plethora of safety issues including, but not limited to, back injuries due to lifting and positioning the heavy batteries, finger smashing, acid spills, and other bodily injuries. Further, the chance of electrical connection error may cause explosions, fusing/welding of metal parts, and/or battery damage.
Thus there is a need for a safe system for increasing total daily machine operation time without the need for purchasing multiple machines, and without employing labor intensive and unsafe battery replacing techniques known in the art. The present invention fulfills these and other needs, and addresses other deficiencies of prior art implementations.